A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
太平洋上的四十天：Kai Sato 如何在绝望中一次次选择活下去
Forty Days on the Pacific: How Kai Sato Chose, Again and Again, to Keep Living
About this story
An intermediate Chinese listening story on Kai Sato: his mast broke on a solo sail to Hawaii, and for 40+ days he drifted the Pacific, drinking condensation and eating fish, cried for a week, thought of giving up, but chose to survive until a ship found him. HSK 5-6 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 5-6 Chinese listening episode that runs about 2 minutes. The full Mandarin script is shown with tap-for-pinyin and a line-by-line English translation, so you can listen and read at once — comprehensible input in the sense of Stephen Krashen's i+1 theory. It teaches 10 key vocabulary words such as 完成、经历、选择 and walks through 3 grammar patterns, each explained in English with examples. The same news story is retold at 4 difficulty levels — use the level selector above to find the version that is challenging but still understandable for you.
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原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
Some stories, when you finish them, make you feel that people really can be stronger than they imagine.
Thirty-nine-year-old Kai Sato is from California.
On June 7th this year, he set out from Catalina Island to complete his first solo voyage, bound for Hawaii.
But the ocean soon threw him a heavy punch.
Partway there, a fierce storm snapped his boat's mast.
The boat lay dead on the water, unable to move forward or turn back.
From that moment, he became a lone speck on the Pacific, drifting south day by day with the current.
The real test was water and food.
On July 7th, the fresh water he'd carried aboard ran completely dry.
To survive, he hung up plastic bags to collect the moisture condensing in the air, sending it to his mouth bit by bit.
When hungry, he got by on a little oatmeal, plus the fish and squid that jumped onto his deck.
He decided to fight for himself.
Using pipes and a kayak paddle, he pieced together a makeshift sail and inched, foot by foot, toward the shipping lanes where cargo ships pass.
Of course, he was not made of iron.
He later recalled that he once cried for a whole week straight, and even entertained the thought of just ending it.
But each time, he gritted his teeth and held on.
On July 21st, in a shipping lane about nine hundred miles from Hawaii, a cargo ship named the George III finally spotted the crippled little sailboat.
After more than forty days adrift, Kai Sato finally made it back to shore alive.
What makes his story move people may be exactly this: deep in a sea of hopelessness with no end in sight, again and again, he chose to keep on living.
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Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇完成第一次单人航海 = complete his first solo voyage.
他的经历打动人 = his experience moves people.
选择了继续活下去 = chose to keep living.
比自己想象的更强 = stronger than he imagined.
真正的考验，是水和食物 = the real test was water and food.
把船的桅杆折断了 = snapped the boat's mast.
太平洋上一个孤零零的黑点 = a lone speck on the Pacific.
随船带的淡水彻底喝光了 = the fresh water aboard ran dry.
拼出了一面简易的帆 = pieced together a makeshift sail.
一艘...货船...发现了...小帆船 = a cargo ship spotted the little sailboat.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法既……也……
既 A 也 B = "both A and B / neither ... nor" (here: neither move nor turn back).
船瘫在海面上，既走不了，也回不去。
之所以……，是因为……
X 之所以 Y，是因为 Z = "the reason X is Y is that Z".
他的经历之所以打动人，或许正是因为他一次又一次选择了活下去。
一……又……
一 X 又 X = "X after X, over and over".
他一次又一次，选择了继续活下去。
Proper Nouns
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